In Rockland
by Novocain
Summary: Sometimes Kakashi feels that his existence as a whole is just a series of unfunny punchlines told by someone's great-uncle at parties. "He is sleeping in the cafe when Namikaze Minato burns his way into his life." AU within an AU, folks.
1. Chapter 1

_In Rockland_

Chapter One

. ... .

He is sleeping in the cafe when Namikaze Minato burns his way into his life.

Sumatran blend coffee, fresh and boiling hot and attacking his lower face, is what wakes him. A strangled yell of "fuck", his fist meeting a wide blue eye, and the drip-drop sound of liquid hitting paper complete the event in four seconds flat. This last thing is what registers with Kakashi. He ignores the culprit, who is simultaneously swearing in pain and apologizing while waving a hefty butterfly-patterned mug around. Hand hovering over his agonizingly seared mouth and jaw, Kakashi only has eyes for his coffee-soaked _Icha Icha_. _Icha Icha_, which is no longer lying open on his chest but has landed on the floor in exactly the right spot as to receive the no-cream, two-sugars, grande Sumatran blend run off.

When he turns his gaze to the idiot who has just destroyed his precious soft-core porn, there is a squeak and suddenly a lot fewer expletives and noticeably more apologies.

. ... .

After two minutes of staring stonily at the blond and listening to him babble, Kakashi stands, fending off anxious napkin-blotting all the while. He leaves _Icha Icha_ where it lies because he can't bear to look at it like that, all skewed, stained pages and violated, sopping binding. The idiot is still yammering on; he follows Kakashi to the front of the cafe and on to the counter without pause for breath.

"Uhwee, do you 'aff any 'andages 'ack dere" comes out sounding retarded as he tries to move his swollen, stinging mouth as little as possible. He tries again, enunciating slowly and carefully. "Marie, do you have bandages?" The 'v' sound is especially painful as teeth scrape against oversensitive lips, almost drawing a wince from him.

The barrister grimaces in sympathy and makes to reach over the counter in touch-the-burned-skin impulse before Idiot, which Kakashi has decided is probably a better moniker for the guy than whatever name he may or may not have, jumps in with, "Wait, what? You're bandaging burns? I don't think you're supposed to do that - "

Kakashi cuts him off with a glare. "Shut up," he says clearly. Without bothering to wait for Idiot's response, he turns to Marie again with his signature closed-eyes smile.

The subsequent cursing and hissing are what gets him his bandages.

. ... .

"Jeez, don't do it like that!" The cloth roll is snatched away from his hands as he awkwardly tries yet again to wrap his lower face. The two of them are sitting at a little table in the back, and Idiot has been icing his eye and watching Kakashi try to apply the bandages for the last ten minutes. The man has spent most of it apologizing in fits, but apparently he has moved on to invading Kakashi's space and shamelessly interfering where he is not welcome.

Kakashi tries to make this clear with a lidded stare. Idiot, surprisingly enough, blows it off.

"I swear," he chatters while his hands make quick movements, "it's almost painful watching you do this. I mean, it's a dumb idea in the first place, but you don't have to go about it in the most stiff-upper-lip way possible. Huzzah for asking for help 'cos asking for help's a good thing. Not that you did. Not that you're not an adult. I mean, I'm not saying you're dumb or anything, but it's my fault anyway so it's not a big deal at all to ask for help even if you are one of those anti-asking-for-help guys. And - done!" A beaming smile is sent Kakashi's way.

Kakashi quirks an eyebrow and raises his hand to his face to feel not-tight-but-not-loose cloth fitting the contours of his cheeks, nose, and jaw. He opens his mouth, thankful for the numbing ointment that makes this action not be the height of moronhood, and finds that the bandages move with just enough leeway that eating isn't going to be a problem. Reluctantly impressed, he takes Idiot's measure in a slightly more generous state of mind.

Blue eyes, one with fantastic bruises blooming eagerly around it, sit above a well-shaped and very mobile mouth. Obnoxiously yellow hair spikes all over the place, and if it wasn't for the easy confidence in the set of the man's button-down bedecked shoulders, Kakashi might think him to be completely not worth his time. But he is sprawled in his chair with easy grace, letting Kakashi look at him and his small, easy smile without showing discomfort, and he is actually quiet the whole time. His entire manner is that of artless _easiness_.

Finally, Kakashi cocks his head to the side. The man makes a motion with his hands, as if to ask _Well?  
_  
When he drawls out, "Of course you're a blond," his tone is only slightly impeded by the bandages.

After the inevitable rejoinder of "Well, graybeard, at least my hair doesn't frighten small children" and "A few dumb kids have gotten their eye poked out - sue me" there comes: "So let me buy you a coffee. I mean, it's the least I can do."

"...Idiot, did you actually just offer to buy me coffee? Don't make me laugh - it'd hurt."

"I'm sure it always hurts for your sulky highness to crack a smile. Fine, no coffee. I don't know, how do you feel about pizza? Yummy, greasy pizza makes everything better."

"Do you ever stop talking?"

"No to the pizza. Got it. How about - "

"You leave me alone?"

" - I replace your book?"

Kakashi's lazy gaze, which has been wandering the cafe as he plays blase like it is his job, snaps to the blond.

"...That would be considerate of you, Idiot. I approve." But there is a decided lack of bite to the words.

"Tightly-wound burn victim. What were you reading, anyway?"

"That was possibly the most terrible pun I've heard in the past decade." Without pausing for Idiot to play at faux-injured, he says, "I was reading _Icha Icha_ by Ji - "

"Jiraiya. Yeah, I know it. Don't see what the huge deal is - have you read any of his other stuff? _Swallowed a Fly_ nearly broke my heart."

(This idiot will break Kakashi's heart one day.)

"Screw that. Jiraiya's brilliant but there's no way he did better than _Icha Icha_ - "

. ... .

They end up talking for a couple of hours. Idiot almost ends up late to some meeting, only noticing the time when a college student at one of the tables against the wall swears and starts scrambling to pack his books. It is funny, actually, because the student snaps "Fuck off, I'm late for class" at a pretty girl who, Kakashi would bet, is posed to ask his number.

"Another one who's too dumb to ever get laid," he comments to Idiot, except that Idiot is patting himself down -

For a smart phone, which he slides out of its protective leather sheath. And then his eyes widen.

Kakashi wants to grin. Mindful of his face, something that managed to slip his attention about a total of twelve times over the course of their conversation, he doesn't. "How long?"

"Twenty-two minutes."

He snorts. "Idiot."

"Fuck off. Meet here tomorrow at three?"

"Sounds good. Bring my book."

This time it is Idiot's turn to snort. "Condescending dick with entitlement issues. Just because I mutilated your face doesn't mean - "

"Oh, but it does. And my dick has reason to be condescending and entitled. It knows its worth."

An irritated flush climbs its way onto the man's tan skin. "You look like a wannabe-ninja with those bandages. Don't get purse-hit by any frightened old ladies - "

"I'll show you a frightened old lady - "

"Yeah, your mom - "

Completely forgetting his injuries for the thirteenth time, Kakashi bursts out laughing.

. ... .

When he reaches his empty flat a few hours later, Kakashi realizes that he spent the most enjoyable two hours of the past year talking with a yellow-headed moron who burned his face off and met his petty, disillusioned genius with petty, sneakily diabolical genius _and he never even asked the guy's name_.

His fingers twitch, but he doesn't palm his face.

Fifteen minutes after that, staring into his mold-covered refrigerator, Kakashi realizes that he spent the most enjoyable two hours of the past year talking with a yellow-headed moron. He is abruptly and entirely terrified.

He doesn't go to the cafe the next day.

. ... .

Or the next day.

. ... .

Or the day after that.

. ... .

A week passes.

. ... .

After eleven days - though Kakashi is certainly not counting - he deems it safe to venture to his favorite hang out. He is tired of beating himself up in the cemetery, tired of sitting in his dank little apartment with only Mr. Ukki for company. It is making him a wee bit suicidal again, and if he wants to stay on top of things and find a real job, that is the last thing he needs. At twenty-two, this is his life. At twenty-two, he has already fucked up big-time, is the proud owner of Dead Best Friend #1, and he is determined to live for as long as possible on the small fortune that whole fiasco left him with. He is shoring his strength and biding his time for nothing - he doesn't bother to try to tell himself that he will eventually live his life, that he will eventually be a person the way Obito was.

He won't. He won't get a normal job or make friends with random civilians - this is just a break, just a hiatus. He knows that if he checks his bank account on file with LEAF he will find that a paycheck has been deposited there twice monthly without falter. He knows that in however-long-it-takes he will be right back at LEAF's door, ready to hack the world for them, reshape the economy on their whim, run tech support on missions for their clients, get another partner or three killed by anticlimactic men with guns who never learned that they weren't supposed to be good shots - just because he doesn't know any other way to live.

He hasn't touched a computer in about a year now.

At least his face has healed up. (At least there are no more reminders of yellow-headed morons who have no right to make him enjoy himself.)

So he goes back to the cafe.

When he asks for his usual green tea mochi, made especially on his behalf by the pastry lady, Marie doesn't immediately trot off. Instead, she leans over the counter, half-eager and half-clandestine.

"You know the guy who spilled coffee on you a while back?"

Kakashi's stomach clenches. God, this is ridiculous. Why is he so scared of some guy who made him laugh? "Ah, yeah."

"Real cutie. If he tosses hot, caffeinated beverages on you again, point him my way. Anyway, he asked me to give you this."

It is a small, red novel, plain and spine unbroken. Its title reads _Swallowed a Fly _in unassuming navy text.

. ... .

He reads it. Twice. For six straight hours, he reads it. Then he sets it on fire in his bathroom sink.

When Gai comes for his monthly annoy-Kakashi session four days later, Kakashi leaves with him.

. ... .

LEAF gives him his old lab station back, but it is an empty action. The computers have all been updated to the latest versions and the firewalls he built into the system have been messed with and the new desk the monitors sit on doesn't have Obito's nine step plan to rule the world scratched into its surface. In what is probably a wise move, he doesn't share his workspace with a new squad captain - neither is he partnered with a primary squad. He doesn't know who approved these violations of regulations. He doesn't really care.

Other than that, LEAF is pretty much the same - except Rin isn't around either. According to Gai, who is taking a break from field ops to train some brats, she disappeared somewhere in Bangladesh about six months ago. Kakashi finds he doesn't have anything to say to that.

Sometimes he gets the wonderful feeling that his entire life was supposed to be different, that something or someone important was supposed to show up but missed their cue and this is the result. But whatever - he is sick of thinking about what a shit-show it all is.

So he dinks around on the web, crashes a few corrupt corporations, hacks some files that a rival agency won't play nice about and share, performs as eagle eye for a few low-risk missions, and waits for Director Sarutobi to call him into his office and tell him what to do now.

After two weeks of nothing, the summons comes.

. ... .

"Hey, ninja-wannabe. How did you like the book?"

Kakashi stares, completely thrown. "...Idiot. Where's the director?"

Blue eyes widen slightly. The bruise is gone by now, of course. "Um. I _am _the director. Didn't you - I mean, didn't you know that?"

"...What."

"Wow. This is awkward. I kind of assumed - I mean, you _are_ a hacker, right?"

A slightly wild-eyed stare is the only answer.

"Right. I figured you came back to LEAF because you tracked me down after the whole burning-your-face-off shindig, but I guess this really was just a huge coinkydink, huh? Face is looking good, by the way - glad to see that mummifying it didn't leave you with awful, horrendous scars or anything."

This is Kakashi's brilliant response: "...Coinkydink?"

"Yeah. You know, I accidentally spill coffee on you, we chit-chat, you stand me up, you read Jiraiya's masterpiece, you use your hacker-magic to find me do you can rhapsodize about its brilliance, you rejoin LEAF, I see your file and realize I know you - "

"I did not use my 'hacker-magic' to find you. I didn't want to see you again." His mouth is running away with him, spilling out things that he shouldn't say.

And out of nowhere, Idiot is a completely different person. It is something in the set of his shoulders, maybe. "I've gathered that, Hatake Kakashi. Why did you come back to the agency?"

Kakashi is lost, is blind-sided and still realigning the world, but this is his job and this is his life and this is his personal shit and he gets it together in one second flat. "I felt that the reasons for my hiatus were no longer relevant, sir."

The tilt of Idiot's head changes slightly, distraction flitting over his face. "Did you just call me sir?"

Kakashi eyes him, derailed and completely nonplussed. "Yes, sir."

A shudder. "Oooh, that's weird. I listened to you continuously insult me for an entire afternoon - cut it out."

"That would be inappropriate, sir."

They sit in awkward silence for a moment. When it breaks, there is something serious and quiet and a little sad in the director's smile.

"Yes, well. To business, hm? Since no one told you and you obviously didn't immediately hack the systems upon your return, Sarutobi has retired. Completely of his own prerogative, by the way, which is almost unheard of. I'll leave it to you to do the work and track him down, as I'm sure you'll wish to verify this with him." Here he sighs. Silence gathers for a few beats before: "I'm not going to lie. This is a risky period for LEAF. We're in transition, and there are both inside and outside factions who really don't like me. We need you, Hatake, and not only for your computer and strategy skills."

Kakashi feels the world fade and fall three dimensions down. "You want me back in Dicey."

"In the DISE, yes. I know you haven't been a part of it in a few years, but this is necessary."

"...I. Answer me one thing first."

Blue eyes study him coolly. "Yes?"

"It was really a coincidence?"

A humorless smile appears, so unlike the one Kakashi spent two hours trying not to be infected by that it is remarkable. "Yeah, Kakashi. It really was."

"I accept."

"Right. Report to Morino, then. You know the drill."

"Sir." Kakashi turns to leave.

"Wait."

And turns around again. "Sir?"

"You should know - I was Obito's mentor and sponsor."

. ... .

He doesn't report to Ibiki right away. Instead, he goes to his station and triples the security measures. Satisfied with that, he immediately starts searching for information on Namikaze Minato. It is incredibly off that Kakashi has never heard of him or met him - aside from the fact that he has obviously been in LEAF as a pivotal member for a long time, Obito never even mentioned his name.

It takes a good twelve hours for Kakashi to wade through all the bureaucratic dead ends and what are actually some respectable security configurations. It is maybe one in the afternoon of the next day when he leans back in his chair with a sigh. At least fifteen code names - some of which he's heard of or seen references to before and some not - three dead languages, and six phantoms later, he thinks he has a grasp on what Namikaze Minato is about.

The gist: He joined LEAF at fourteen, during the cold war period with IWA. A prodigy, definitely, getting in at the same age as Kakashi himself. Kakashi can't find his sponsor's name, but Sarutobi trusted the teen enough to use him consistently. Hundreds of missions, the DISE, and six years later, he sponsored Uchiha Obito. After training Obito for three years, Obito was promoted to captain - Kakashi's captain - right at the height of the IWA conflict, when it began turning overt. Without the responsibility of a student, Namikaze disappeared into complete confidential access obscurity. This is where the dead languages enter the picture - two-thirds of his mission reports in the next two years were written semi-alternately in Yola, Polabian, and what Kakashi thinks is a Tataviam dialect. The appreciable challenge of translating the reports doesn't make reading their content any more enjoyable, but to say the least Namikaze was an instrumental part of LEAF's triumph over IWA. When things came to a head a couple of months after Obito died and Kakashi left, he led the operations, and when Sarutobi retired Namikaze became the youngest director in the history of LEAF at the age of twenty-six.

The reports are the worst part of it. Somehow, despite being written in dead languages and code, Kakashi can feel the man in the precise, neat symbols that are carefully devoid of humanity. He really doesn't want to feel he knows Namikaze Minato that well.

Because he knows he doesn't.

_You should know - I was Obito's mentor and sponsor._

Obito never mentioned him. Kakashi really shouldn't feel a little betrayed by this, but he does.

He ambushes Morino in the lobby the next morning.

* * *

**A****/N**: If you know what I'm referring to with _Swallowed a Fly,_ then you have some idea of why the reference wrote itself in. It is incredibly wrenching and definitely deserves a shout-out.

So this started off as a paltry little one-shot that m'dear Moiya Hatake instituted a challenge for about a week ago on the Yonkaka comm. And then...it wasn't. It just kept going, and then a plot appeared and a backstory that I didn't want to abandon. So - multichap! Yeah, I know that _These Are All Things You Don't Understand_ is still going, but this way I'll have something fresh to keep me writing when I should. Hopefully.

Anyway, I'd love to hear opinions. This is quite different from my usual. An in-your-face AU! Huzzah!


	2. Chapter 2

_In Rockland_

Chapter Two

. ... .

The DISE - or Dicey Division, as it is called in black humor by its members - is the classified section of LEAF. Its missions are as a rule political in nature, slotted into assassination, intelligence extraction, and torture and interrogation. Unlike the less classified sections of LEAF, whose respective responsibilities mostly revolve around contracted missions, the DISE deals solely with LEAF goals, directives, and internal affairs. It is an old hat for Kakashi, something almost too easy to slip back on despite three years of inactivity. The five years of service before his voluntary demotion and subsequent assignment as Obito's tech support seem to be overcoming that. All that is required of him is that he steadily intensify his daily exercise regime again.

He is waiting for something to happen, but other than a few unremarkable assassinations stretched out over the course of a month, nothing really does.

. ... .

"Kakashi, get your ass in gear. Ibiki wants you."

Kakashi doesn't glance up from _Icha Icha_. "Where is he?"

Asuma snorts. "The docks, of course. Squad D came in with that Czech kid, and Anko's been working on him for the past six hours. Five to one odds that Ibiki's going to have to handle it himself."

"Huh. Tough kid."

"Yeah. Took out Takanada."

No response is forthcoming. Kakashi turns a page.

"You know, Takanada. Raging asshole on Squad B - right, you weren't unlucky enough to know him. Keh. Fuck off already, would you? God, you're back after a few years of nothing and you've only made being a pain in the ass even more effortless."

This earns a small smirk. "Feeling old, are we?"

"I've got diplomatic immunity in three countries."

"And I've got in nine."

"Yeah, sure. Wanna guess how many of those Ibiki can track you to?"

Kakashi's smirk stretches into a smile as he stands, popping his neck lazily. "Going, going."

"Say hi to the crazy bitch for me."

Kakashi meanders his way through the brightly lit halls, passing a few agents he knows and a lot more he doesn't. That is really the most jarring thing about being back in Dicey - same old assignments, completely different people. Aside from Morino Ibiki, Mitarashi Anko, Yamato, and Sarutobi Asuma, most of the members he knew in his first stint have either resigned, died, or retired completely. He is aware that a lot of the drastic turnover rate was to do with the IWA-LEAF clusterfuck and the aftermath that LEAF is still feeling, but that doesn't make it any less strange.

Morino Ibiki, though, is exactly the same, and so are the docks. Kakashi wrinkles his nose at the pungent scent of disinfectant that doesn't entirely hide the smell of blood and human defecation as he knocks on Observation 5.

"Get in here already, Hatake."

He opens the door and steps inside. "Yo."

Ibiki doesn't reply, frowning down at the scene on the other side of the two-way mirror. Kakashi joins him and is almost surprised by the wreck of a human being that is strapped to the table in Dock 5.

"...I don't think Mitarashi really gets enough credit in the ranks."

Ibiki snorts and turns somewhat to face him. "There's really only so much constant terror someone can inspire on what's mostly hearsay. I don't let enough people see what she can do, though I suppose that may change soon."

Kakashi tilts his head back a little and sighs. "So you've got confirmation on some kind of plot."

"Spot on. The director told me he mentioned the situation to you."

"Just that there are internal and external factions against him."

"Yes. Have you been approached by any of them?"

"Not yet. I've been gone for a while - everyone's still taking my measure."

"Right. Listen to me, Kakashi." There is something tense in Ibiki's voice. Kakashi straightens.

"Listening."

"I - fuck. I know that you've been away, and not just from Dicey. And I know that you never worked with Director Namikaze - "

"Wait. Why is that? Our service in Dicey overlapped for two years."

Ibiki's lips thin. "A legitimate question, but shut your flap for a minute. Look, you _did_ know him. Or at least you knew of him. Yondaime ring a bell?"

Kakashi feels the blood drain from his face. "I can't believe I didn't catch that."

That wins a raspy chuckle. "Yeah, well. Even your hacking skills fail sometimes. But you know what he did."

"Other than take out half of IWA's elite and burn three of their bases?"

"That's the meat of it, yeah. Bottom line is, LEAF would've lost if we hadn't had him. He retired the codename eventually - too many of IWA's people out for his head."

"...Okay. So now I know this. Go on."

"You don't know the director. You don't know the kind of man he is, and maybe you don't trust him. Fuck that. He's the best person for the job, the only person for the job right now, and if he falls then LEAF will fall with him."

Kakashi nods slowly, willing to concede that for the sake of the conversation. This is the most serious he has ever seen the head of the DISE, which means a lot considering the man's usual demeanor.

"There are going to be some assassination attempts over the next few months. I'm assigning you as his bodyguard."

Kakashi's mouth opens to - he doesn't even know what would have come out, but Ibiki slashes a single scarred hand through the air and he remains silent.

"It has to be you, Kakashi. Of the operatives from the war who are still with us, who I can trust fully, you are the only one who has been out of LEAF politics entirely for any length of time. You're the only one who wasn't here to have an opinion when Sarutobi picked Namikaze over the other candidates, the only one who wasn't caught up in the bullshit." Ibiki looks him full-on in the eye. "Sarutobi picked a fuck-all time to retire. It was a stupid move - IWA just out of the way, most of the old regime dead or out of commission, too many new recruits and not enough of the old loyalties. LEAF will tear itself apart at this rate, and if the director is taken out, it's assured."

"So you want me to be his bodyguard." Kakashi doesn't raise the issue of the director's normal detail - they are just as suspect as anyone else, if not more so.

"Don't ask rhetorical questions, Hatake. Eat with him, sleep with him, piss with him. Don't let him out of your sight. Don't let him kick the bucket. If he dies, we're all as good as dead, but I swear you'll go really slowly and in more agony than the brat Anko's working on."

A bubble of amusement rises in Kakashi's chest as the other man's normal irritation with the world reasserts itself. "Right, right. Do you have any more details on the threat?"

Ibiki frowns again and turns back back to the scene in Dock 5, where Anko has just dislocated the nameless Czech kid's right ankle. "Not yet. But I will."

. ... .

And now Kakashi is exactly where he doesn't want to be - stuck 24-7 hanging around the one man who freaks him out. This is not a man he wants to get to know better. This is not a man he feels in any way safe around, possibly because he likes the idiot too much. And he keeps having to remind himself that the man _isn't_ in fact an idiot but the head of LEAF. Namikaze Minato has a thousand levels of danger in the layers of his pinkie nail. Fucking _Yondaime_.

It encompasses about five different universes' capacities for fucked up.

He knocks on the director's door, conveniently labeled with a plaque that reads _Namikaze Minato_ in dignified letters, _Director_ a tad smaller beneath it. Of course he only notices it now, when it is too late to redo his first official meeting with Namikaze. His observational skills have obviously gotten a little dusty.

And he is the sole defense between the man and death. Life is just excellent.

...There is no answering call to his knock. Kakashi immediately relaxes all the muscles in his body, his gun slipping into his hand like a lover. He reaches for the door knob.

He almost wants to shoot the idiot himself when the scene that greets him is not one of blood and mayhem but instead: A yellow-headed dumbass with blue ink on his chin whistling behind towers of paperwork while folding paper airplanes.

This is going to be a stressful assignment.

Kakashi takes a moment to come to terms with this before clearing his throat quietly. With a welcoming smile on hand, Namikaze looks up from the top-priority document he is folding, completely unsurprised by his presence.

"Kakashi. What can I do for you?"

"Director. I've been assigned as your bodyguard."

The man's eyes sharpen infinitesimally. "What is Ibiki - ah. Right. You've been gone. Still, possibly not the best move. I did destroy your precious book, after all."

Kakashi successfully fights the glower that wants to take its place on his face. "Easily replaced, sir."

Laughter. "Easily replaced, hm? I seem to remember you having different thoughts on the matter. Attachment, even, if the death glare you radiated at me for the first half hour or so of our acquaintance was anything to go by."

"Simply a natural reaction to unnecessary pain, sir," he replies smoothly.

Namikaze leans forward, a smile curving his mouth. "So if I, for instance, banned _Icha Icha_ within the bounds of LEAF headquarters...?"

Kakashi swats down the automatic protest that wants to fly out, irritated that this man so clearly knows how to rile him. "As the director, you are of course most aware of what is best for the organization."

"Heh. You do realize that you're - wait, relay your exact orders to me."

"...'Eat with him, sleep with him, piss with him. Don't let him out of your sight. Don't let him kick the bucket.'"

There is a glint in Namikaze's eye that Kakashi is sure he doesn't like. "Hm. Imagine that. Well then - why don't you make yourself comfortable while I finish this paperwork, and then we'll go down to this cute little cafe I like for a quick lunch."

Kakashi ignores the cafe comment and settles himself in the corner to the immediate left of the door, where he will have a clear shot at anyone who crosses the threshold. He examines the office from this vantage point. Dark green carpeting, rich woods, bookcases lining the far left wall. Two different air vents, no windows. There is no strikingly obvious entrance other than the front door, but Kakashi is sure that there is a secret passage somewhere. He will question Namikaze over lunch.

...Evidently Namikaze's definition of finishing paperwork involves setting the planes on fire and trying to get them to fly into the trash can before complete incineration.

This is going to be a stressful assignment.

. ... .

Kakashi manages to get them to lunch with his charge's office mostly intact, a few scorch marks and small burns aside. When it turns out that they really are having lunch at Kakashi's cafe, he wants to punch the other man in the eye all over again. It feels like an invasion of privacy, of territory - this quiet, atmospheric little place with its special-made green tea mochi is where LEAF and death and bullshit were never meant to come.

He only ever even brought Obito here twice.

"Wow, Kakashi. You look a little pissed off."

"...Oh, you asshole. You complete cunt. You're doing this on purpose. I can't believe you're doing this on _purpose_. How suicidal are you?" He knows he is staring at the other man in a clear expression of disbelief but makes no effort to stop.

Namikaze just grins. "That's better. If you're going to be glued to my side for the foreseeable future, I'm not putting up with that perfect-underling bullshit. I've seen the saucy little sarcasm-sandwich you really are."

"_Saucy little sarcasm-sandwich?!_" He is gaping and his voice has just come out far too high for comfort. He is _actually gaping_, but this is the most horrified he he has been in...years, actually, and this is his cafe - it is so difficult to be a LEAF agent in his cafe; that is exactly the opposite of what he picked it out for. It was stupid, in hindsight, to allow himself even such a harmless weakness.

"Yup. Anyway, what'd you think of _Swallowed a Fly_?"

"...I. You. What?"

He rolls his eyes and twists comfortably in his chair, throwing one arm over the back. "The book I gave you, Kakashi. What were your thoughts?"

Kakashi stares at the infuriating man whose shadow he will be for an indeterminable amount of time and closes his slightly open mouth with a click. "You want to know what I thought?"

"Well, yeah."

"Get used to disappointment."

. ... .

The first thing Kakashi does when they arrive back at the innocuous office building that houses LEAF is get started on his job, wanting entirely to forget lunch and its silent, underlying struggle over what their dynamic is to be. He is ruffled and half-sick with the now-alien effort of prolonged interaction - it is by turns horrendously difficult and terrifyingly easy, but mostly so terrifyingly easy that Kakashi makes it horrendously difficult. He mentally damns the man's extraordinary charisma. He doesn't want - comradeship or friendship or anything personal at all, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Namikaze Minato is going to invade his life thoroughly.

He grimly acknowledges that he should consider accepting this, but _he doesn't want any of it_, goddammit, and he never has. He chooses to live the way he does - chose to hack LEAF's databases at fourteen, chose to apply to Dicey when it became an option, chose to take the tech support position, chose to leave, chose to return - and he has never shied away from accepting the fallout of those choices. This organization successfully recruiting him, his missions, his dead operatives, and now Namikaze Minato are all things he can and will live with.

There is no clause that requires Kakashi to be anyone other than who he is, though, and he is an outrageously dysfunctional and socially introverted genius with a fondness for soft-core porn and an amazing proficiency with computers.

Thus: "Don't even think about sitting down, sir."

Namikaze freezes halfway through sinking into his luxurious leather chair. "What?"

"You. Walk to that corner. Sit. Don't move."

The man follows his instructions without hesitation, but reluctance and confusion mar his features. "Kakashi, really. What's this?"

Kakashi drops into the desk chair and looks at the sleek monitor before him. It only takes him ten seconds to log on, five more to have the confidential files pop up. He huffs silently and shakes his head. "Sir, who designed your data protections?"

The director's face is unreadable. "So that's what you're doing. Carry on." And now a dismissive hand-twirl - and he is completely ignoring Kakashi's existence.

Infuriating. He didn't even answer the question. Kakashi's fingers tap away at the keyboard rapid-fire. Windows live and die for seconds at a stretch, codes and numbers flying across the screen.

"Sir, you should fire whoever did this. Maybe have them shot. They built in several spyware programs and left a couple of worms, not to mention a trapdoor," he tells his boss a few minutes later, eyes still on the monitor.

Silence still. Kakashi looks up. "Sir?"

Namikaze, sitting elegantly in his corner, makes a great show of startling. "Oh, were you talking to me? I wasn't sure. Since I'm obviously five years old, the 'sir' threw me a bit."

And this is why he really doesn't want this assignment. The interaction between them is messy - too messy, born of clicking intellects and tilted by work etiquette. Kakashi isn't good at messy. He doesn't like messy. He isn't good with _people_, and he knows that he is going to constantly be staggering all over the line between equals, which is what Namikaze wants, and employer-employee, which is their reality. Equals. That is the part that is going to be hard. Kakashi isn't used to considering the effect his manner has on others. Obito had been a thick-skinned anomaly. "Sir..."

"Don't treat me like a child, Kakashi. And I knew it was compromised. I don't do anything important on that desktop for precisely that reason, and a good amount of the data is falsified."

"If you knew - "

"Several of the hackers in charge of my security contributed to the system you see before you. At least two of them are Orochimaru's men. I couldn't show I knew this without forcing some sort of confrontation, and no one is ready for that yet."

Kakashi winces slightly, typing petering out. "So did I just fu - fubar everything?"

"Not at all. Word will get around that you're my guard. If you hadn't found what you did, it would be suspicious. I now have a secure computer for completely justifiable reasons."

"...I hadn't realized things had gotten this bad. How many of the hackers are supporting you?"

"Not counting you, eight."

"Out of - I guess it'd be fourteen with Hakkai dead."

"Eighteen. You don't know most of them."

Kakashi whistles under his breath. "Straight half-and-half. And none of your supporters could find this without rousing suspicion?"

"There's no one in the hackers with your skill anymore. You're a dying breed, Kakashi. I can't do anything about the fact that of the top three, two aren't my men. I need Ginji to keep an eye on them for me. Not reporting the flaws in my system has gotten him an in."

Kakashi nods and directs his attention anew to the strings of numbers and letters flaring on the screen. Assassination attempts, yes - but he hadn't expected such deeply rooted betrayal to already be in play. No, he simply hadn't expected the organized manner of it - "Oh. This isn't a half-cocked coup, weak factions trying for power. It's thorough, coherent - cohesive, even."

"Bingo," Namikaze says simply. "Why the surprise? You didn't think Ibiki was over-exaggerating, did you?"

"If anything, he didn't impress the situation enough."

"Or you didn't listen."

"That too, maybe. This isn't my LEAF."

"Yeah? Well, I'm obviously required to claim it." A beat. "This is Namikaze Minato's LEAF. This is what this organization is under my leadership. I've done a great job so far, I must say. Really overhauled the system."

In the silence that lingers for the rest of the afternoon, they both know that Minato is in the slow-building process of failing as the director of LEAF.


End file.
